Repair & Rev
by mercva
Summary: OC Movieverse. Bunch of shorts about a civ mechanic on the Autobot's base. Expect updates once a decade. Rated M for drinkin' and rockin'.
1. Chapter 1

"Who's that mech in the corner who doesn't come out of altmode?" Sideswipe asked, meaning the black '73 Dodge Challenger in the corner.

Ramsey paused. The Challenger was his own personal car, but Sideswipe's mistake was easy to understand. Except for the Autobots, every single vehicle with wheels on Diego Garcia was beige, utilitarian, and military. The Challenger, in superlative condition, fitted in perfectly with the silver Corvette, the yellow and black Camaro (when it was present), and the others, save for the fact that the design was thirty or forty years old.

Bumblebee, standing around watching while Sam caught up with Lennox, decided to have a bit of fun with Sides. "That's old Silverblack, isn't it, Ramsey? Pretty old, doesn't say much. Didn't he arrive before Sideswipe did?"

The old human caught on. "Yeah, he's hell on wheels when he gets going, though."

"Think he'd like to spar with me?" Sideswipe asked, excitement rising in his tone.

"Dunno," Ramsey shrugged. "He's in recharge at the moment, maybe you could ask Ironhide."

He lowered the carlift. His excuse for that was that he was getting too old to lie on a trolley and slide underneath cars anymore. His reason was that it stopped his patients from getting bored or scared and transforming mid-maintenance. He'd seen enough crunched fingers in his life without getting a set himself.

Ramsey cleaned his hands on a handy rag. "There, Sideswipe, good as new,"he said, pouring himself a couple fingers of Jamesons from the everpresent bottle. It mysteriously disappeared five minutes before every surprise inspection Lennox had tried, and the wily old mechanic had managed to get a clause into his contract saying outright that alcohol blood level testing was not allowed. Sideswipe had opened a book on when he'd get in trouble for his drinking.

"Thanks!" Sideswipe said, transforming from mech to altmode a few times. "That's definitely got that sticking plate fixed."

* * *

Half an hour later, an angry Corvette stormed into Ramsey's workshop, where the man was selfmedicating.

"You lied to me!" Sideswipe yelled. "That's just a car! It isn't an Autobot!"

"I never did," Ramsey snarked back. "You just assumed it was."

"You did too! You said he was in recharge!"

Ramsey pointed to a point a foot to the side of a battery charger. "And so old Silverblack is, fixed a problem with the alternator but the battery wound up going flat before I did fix it."

"You said to ask Ironhide if I could spar against him!"

"I thought you meant racing," Ramsey said, eyes twinkling with drunken innocence. He turned to an amused Optimus Prime who had followed the angry warrior. "Sparring means racing, right?"

"Well," Optimus said, trying to come up with something that would satisfy both parties.

"Slag, it isn't as if it's any threat to anyone, let alone beat me in a race," Sideswipe muttered, still smarting over Ironhide laughing at him, of all people, falling for it.

"Why don't you put your money where your mouth is, big bot?" Ramsey slurred. "Tomorrow, high noon, coast road around the base perimeter, loser has to submit to the winner's wishes for a month!"

"Only if you're sober and fit to drive," Optimus broke in, "and only for a week. With the proviso that this deal will be suspended in any emergency."

"Done!"

* * *

That evening, the major item of gossip was the upcoming race. The prevalent opinion was that the Autobot would win.

"I don' care!" Ramsey slurred. "Even if ol' Shideshwipe goesh a ga-jillion miles an hour with alien rocket boots on, I'm still gonna do my best to make humanity proud."

"That's the way, man!" Epps said, slapping the old man on the back. "Can... can I drive Silverblack to the starting line?"

Ramsey slammed his tumbler to the table, slowly turning to face the military man. His bearing was steady, and his face seemed as sober as a judge. "No. No one touches my baby. At all. Ever."

"Well, we all know what la infierno car is going to ask for," Figgs said.

"Wash and wax every day," Ramsey said gloomily, knocking back more of the Jameson. "How in hell is a Dodge Challenger supposed to beat an alien robot car?"

Sideswipe and Optimus paused as they walked past the humans' recreation room. Optimus gave Sideswipe a silent look.

"Well... I could limit myself to the physical abilities of a 2010 Corvette," Sideswipe said reluctantly.

Optimus nodded.

* * *

"So you're going to have the power and handling of a modern Corvette?" Ramsey asked the next morning. For a wonder, he was sober.

Sideswipe nodded. "My word on it."

Ramsey grinned evilly, then got into the Challenger. With a flick of the switch, a massive roar filled the garage as he shot off towards the starting line.

While the engine idled, he popped the bonnet for the soldiers to marvel at the powerplant.

"Read 'em and weep, boys," he said smugly. "454 cubic inches of muscle."

"Where's the carburettors?" Lennox asked.

"Electronic fuel injection in my baby," Ramsey said proudly. "I got me an ECU and everything. My nephews could play Need for Speed on this thing."

"That suspension doesn't look stock either," Epps said, from where he was lying on the ground looking up at the back end.

"That's cos it ain't," Ramsey said. "Leaf springs are what you get on Silver Cross prams and medieval ox carts."

The light dawned on Sideswipe. "You knew we were just outside the door listening last night, didn't you?"

The old man nodded unashamedly. "Knew and planned on it."

"Betting is now open," Smokescreen said from the sidelines.

"Now, you here to talk or you here to race?" Ramsey asked.

Sideswipe's optic shutters narrowed. "Shut up and drive, squishy."

On the sidelines, Optimus stepped forwards at the insult, but Lennox stopped him with an arm across one of Prime's feet. "Don't. Talking smack before a race is... tradition, I guess."

Slamming the bonnet shut, Ramsey got into the car and slotted in a CD, skipping to the track he wanted and pausing it.

"Right, ladies and femmes," Mikaela said, stepping forwards to just in front of and safely between the two powerful sports cars. Her, Sam and Bumblebee had stayed overnight to see the race. "On a count of three. One..."

Ramsey unpaused his CD. "If You Want Blood (You Got It)" began to make itself known. Loudly.

"Two."

Sideswipe revved his engine.

"Three!"

With a massive roar, the Challenger leapt forwards, easily outpacing the Corvette and reaching the first corner, where it skidded around in a controlled powerslide. Sideswipe caught up, apexing the turn perfectly.

"How do you think it'll work out?" Epps asked.

"Hard to say," Mikaela said, shading her eyes with her palm. "Ramsey has a lot, and I mean a lot of power in that monster, plus he's modified the hell out of it. Trick axles, independant suspension, EFI, the lot."

"But," Sam said, knowing she wasn't finished.

"He's still driving a musclecar from the Seventies, plus his reflexes aren't what they used to be," Mikaela said reluctantly. The old man was a lot more likeable than Sideswipe, who many of the Autobots apologetically said was still on edge from his brother being missing. "That's a lot of mass, plus the chassis really wasn't designed for good handling. The new 2010 Corvette, on the other hand, was redesigned for handling. It lapped the Nurburgring in seven and a half minutes, which is pretty fast."

The humans watched, a bit more sober after that. Some of the onbase technicians had set up monitors at the starting line, and hooked them into the security system so that everyone could see the races progress.

A pattern was developing rather quickly. Ramsey easily roared into the lead on the straights, while the Autobot corvette ate up the difference on the corners.

"Shit," Mikaela said.

"What is it?" Optimus asked, worried. Something about this race had given his lasercore fits even yesterday.

"He's going right to the edge of what his car can do," she muttered. "One slip... just one slip..."

"He's lost it!" one of the tech's screamed at the top of his lungs. "He's crashed out!"

"C'mon!" Sam yelled, diving through Bumblebee's open door window. After his girlfriend got in too, the Camaro took off for the crash site. After waiting for the human base medic, Ratchet took off in hot pursuit.

The scene was not good. The Challenger's bodywork was dented to hell, and the old man's body was slumped over the steering wheel. Blood was pouring copiously from a headwound, staining the interior.

Sam leapt out of Bee, racing the last few steps. The now concave door stuck, but gave way under ferocious force from both Sam and his girlfriend.

"Get back from him!" the medic roared at Sam. Jolted out of his fear, Sam lifted his hands free, holding them up as if he was in a Western. "Ratchet, any spinal cord injuries?"

"No, for a wonder," Ratchet said, "but he has a black eye, massive bruising, and a slight concussion."

"Thank God," the medic breathed. "Could've been worse. A lot worse. Okay, kid, carefully help me move him. If you hurt him further I'll break your leg."

After helping the man transfer Ramsey onto a stretcher with the utmost care, the man started to deal with the elder's injuries. Sam sat on the battered doorsill.

"It isn't fair," Sam said. "God, I feel so useless."

"Hey, nothing you could do," Sideswipe ventured from the sidelines.

Sam's face scrunched up. "No, I mean, I got this feeling like I should be able to fix this, make it better."

"It isn't your fault," Mikaela said, crouching in front of him.

"No, I mean that... I don't know, it's like this conviction, you know? Not like a criminal conviction, more I'm absolutely certain I can do something to fix at least something about this crash, you know?" Sam said. One of his hands drew into a fist.

"Sam," Mikaela said uncertainly, "why is blue lightning coming out of your hand?"

The urgency in her voice made it through to the teen, who pulled his hand up to look at it.

"Weird, I can't feel a thing," Sam said, right before he was sent flying from the Challenger as it seemed to massively shudder.

"Shit," the human medic said. "Someone help me load them too. Ratchet, mind transforming?"

"Not at all," the Autobot medic replied.

"I'll put a tarp over the car for now," Lennox said. About to throw it over, he paused. "Wasn't this door bashed in?"

The medic paused as well, looking over. "I don't know, maybe. Look, I need to get this lot to the sickbay."

Lennox shook his head, throwing the tarpaulin over the '73 Challenger. He looked wistfully at the massive tough blue-covered hulk. "Man, that thing could _go_."


	2. Drinking In The Boys Room

"There are that many types of Cybertronian?" Lennox asked, highly impressed.

He, Ramsey, and Arcee were sitting in the human rec room, looking through old pictures she had. Optimus Prime had circulated to his people his rules over what the humans were not allowed to view in terms of technology, so some of the photos had black areas superimposed over sections.

"Hang on, go back one," Ramsey said.

Arcee obligingly went back to a picture made of two photographs. One of a tall, heavily built transformer, the other of a relatively small communications device. "Oh, that guy. I hate his very bolts! And yes, that's the same 'Con in both photos."

"Wow, what happened to all the metal?" Lennox asked.

"Massive abuse of subspace," Arcee said. "If you can disrupt subspace, which is not easy to do, you can force him to transform back to root mode. He's Soundwave, the Decepticons Chief Communications Officer, and he's one of the scariest they have."

"Bloodthirsty?" Lennox asked, studying the face. It had both a visor, and also a mask over it's mouth.

"No, just incredibly competent," Arcee said reluctantly. "That, and his Cassettes. Frenzy is one of his."

"That little freak?" Lennox asked.

"Yeah," Arcee said, shivering. "Wanna see more?"

"Sure," Ramsey said affably. Being decidedly oldfashioned at times, he poured more energon into Arcee's ceramic mug from the hazmat container the base used for the hazardous (to humans) substance. "Hold on, what's that?"

"Oh, that's one of the Seeker types," Arcee said. While the Cybertronian in the photo was clearly a flier (and a jet at that), it was humanoid in appearance, but with massive air intakes reaching above it's head and large wings on it's back.

"So, relatively human in it's motion range," Lennox said thoughtfully. "Are that type 'Cons or Autobots, generally?"

"Their home city was one of the first destroyed in the war," Arcee said, sadness tingeing her voice. "Treachery, I think. I had a good friend there. I think they were the officer caste for the Seeker supertype. If Starscream or Thundercracker were one of them, Earth would have been invaded by a unified Decepticon Cybertron vorns ago."

"They've got better brains, er processors?" Ramsey asked. He was visibly fascinated by all this.

"They're trained from Sparklinghood in tactics, strategy, and what you'd probably call the _real_ Jet Judo," Arcee explained. "They're also more flexible if you get one of Starscream's frametype on the ground, you could tie them down and do what you want. This type are dangerous on as well as off the ground."

"Ooooo, I like them," Ramsey said admiringly. He meant aesthetically as well as functionally. "What do you mean by 'real Jet Judo'?"

"You know how Sideswipe likes to latch onto Seekers midflight and try and make them crash?" Arcee asked. The Corvette was vicious. Ironhide was still making excuses about the missing twin. "Him and Sunstreaker call it 'jet judo'. They're teasing the Decepticon Seekers, making fun of the fact that all the real practitioners are deactivated and the true Jet Judo is lost forever. The Twin's judo isn't related in any way to the real thing."

"Those Decepticon jets are crybabies and prima donnas," one of the NESTS human soldiers said, quite loudly.

"Bull," Ramsey said from his table where he held court in the rec room.

The soldier got up and marched over. "What was that?"

"I said, bullshit," Ramsey said, breathing into the man's face.

"They had to tie the scrapheap down outside ferchrissake," the soldier said. "Claustrophobic my achin' ass."

Ramsey slowly poured himself another shot of Whyte And MacKay, and knocked it back before answering. "You get laid before?"

"What?" the soldier asked, confused by the sudden change of topic.

"Ever been laid? Son, have you ever fucked a woman?" Ramsey repeated.

"Yeah, course I have," the soldier said, still confused.

"Would you voluntarily let someone cut your block and tackle off?" Ramsey asked. "Give up sex forever?"

The man's hands went over his crotch reflexively. "Hell no!"

The mechanic nodded. "Well, son, that's what it's like for the Seekers. You've seen the flightsims that the Air Force use, right? Cockpit mockup, big screens, hydraulics on the big ones? Expensive suckers?"

The light dawned on the soldier. But he still wasn't sure where the hell Ramsey was going with this.

"I've got a brother, works in engineering. I think he's working for a company that makes fuel pumps for petrol station pumps of all things at the moment. Loves flying. He bought a copy of some fancy flight sim program, and then bought a dozen damn computer screens. Bought a secondhand old cockpit from an aircraft scrapper, spent weeks wiring it up to some crappy old interface or something.. He spent even more money on the computer than I did on Silverblack's engine. And when it's all working, him sitting in that cockpit, flying endless missions through the clear blue skies in his monitors, to him it's freedom, it's better than drink. I was visiting when a power spike killed the power supply in his computer, and he was damn near suicidal waiting for the replacement."

"I... think I get what you're saying," the soldier said slowly. "Uh... not everyone thinks the same way I do?"

"Exactly," Ramsey said, pouring the last of the MacKay into his glass. "Ever consider asking a woman to tie you up and whip you until you cry?"

"Hell no! Sounds painful to me."

"Some people do, and they enjoy it. Go sit the hell down."

"You're a man of unexpected depths," Lennox said from where he'd been watching the whole lecture.

Ramsey drank the scotch he'd poured. "People are people, even if their skin is made of carbon steel. Now, you mentioned Jet Judo, there any other Cybertronian martial arts?"

* * *

A/N: Yes, G1 is being integrated into this. The additional Seekertype Arcee speaks of is, of course, the G1 Seekers like G1 Skywarp and the like.


	3. Normal'

"What's happening?" Ramsey asked, rubbing his eyes. He'd just gotten out of bed this was the only bad thing about this gig. You got kick-ass alien robots with true intelligence, but you got military digs.

"Sam Witwicky's run off," one of the soldiers said, rolling his eyes.

"Any trace of where to?" Ramsey asked, feeling an hour behind these young kids.

"Officially, no, but unofficially Ratchet put a tracing beacon in the kid's backside when he was doing 'medical scans'," Lennox said, doing airquotes around medical scans.

"Youth is wasted on the young," the old mechanic declared. "Damnfool kids. Who's going after him?"

"We were going to send out a team with Bumblebee to back them up," Lennox said.

"Hmm... I've got a better idea," Ramsey said. "That kid, you'll just put his back up and make him dig his heels in if you try and just bring him back."

"You mean you wanna go talk to him?"

"Yeah. I mean, he's an idiot sometimes, but he'll grow out of it. He's a good kid. Gimme and the car a lift to the mainland?"

* * *

Sam was staring out across the suburban sprawl, absently noting the deep rumble behind him that cut off. He turned when someone sat next to him.

"Mr Ramsey?" Sam asked. "Are you here to make me go back?"

"Me? Hell no," Ramsey said. "You've got a right to make your own decisions, you're nearly a man now. Just like I got the right to argue with you. Why're you running, anyway?"

"I just want to be normal," Sam said, obviously wound up. "I just wanna go to college and get a good job."

Ramsey snorted. "Bullshit. You really just want to be normal?"

"Yes," Sam hissed, as he got up and started to pace.

"Ever seen that movie 'Con Air'?" Ramsey asked.

"Yeah, why?" Sam said, turning his head to look at the old man.

"There's a good line in there. 'Insanity is working the same job for fifty years, at the end of which they tell you to fuck off and you spend your days with the indignity of trying to make it to the toilet on time.' Normal is bullshit, kid. What's normal here is bloody weird somewhere else. I spent some time in New Zealand once. You know how every year you get hordes of damn kids knocking on the door for free lollies at Halloween?"

Sam nodded.

"That country, you get maybe one kid in the whole night, and just about every house they get nothin'. And every single house they get funny looks. Well, maybe not in the big cities there, but where I stayed that's how it was. Now, is that normal?"

"No!" Sam protested.

"Well, it is for them," Ramsey said, in the voice of someone laying down an ace. "And fifty years from now, do you wanna be looking back at your life, and just see fifty years of doing the same old shit as everyone else, stuck in that same old rut, or you wanna be able to say, 'I did something'?"

"I guess," Sam said softly. "But..."

"No, what you really want ain't normal, you want a bit of routine, structure, knowing where you're going, roughly, and where you'll be in five years, not wondering what on God's green earth you're gonna be doing when you wake up every damn day, am I right?"

Ramsey could almost see Sam's brain running over this.

"C'mon, in the car. There's a bunch of worried folks waiting for you."

* * *

"How'd you find me, anyway?" Sam asked. The stereo in the Challenger wasn't on very loudly, chiefly so that Ramsey could still hear trucks and the like coming up behind him.

"If I tell you, I might not be able to use it again," Ramsey shot back with a wicked grin.

"C'mon, I promise I won't run away again," Sam pleaded.

"You sure? You won't be happy," Ramsey said teasingly.

"Give up, please."

"Ol' Hatchet implanted a homing beacon in your ass during that last exam."

Silence reigned in the car, broken only by the Rolling Stones.

"That slagger! He said it was some kind of antibodies thing!"

Ramsey winced. "That's it, I'm making you spend more time around the soldiers so's you learn to swear properly."

"How'd you fix the car so fast," Sam asked, running his hand along the front dash.

"Dunno," Ramsey said bluntly. "It was crumpled like a tin can in the photos I saw, but it somehow straightened itself up. Bumblebee and Ratchet reckon it's pumped to the gills with latent Allspark energy or something now."

"It... it's not..."

"Nah, it's just a car, it just fixes itself, now, I think," Ramsey said, uncertainty plain. "Er. They said something about it going active, but I honestly couldn't follow them."

"How long have you had this car?" Sam asked, fascinated.

"Bought it new," Ramsey said proudly. "I'm the first owner. Saw the movie Vanishing Point in '71, worked my ass off for a deposit, and bought it new from the dealer."

Sam laughed. "I still can't believe that Sideswipe thought this was an Autobot."


	4. Shock

"Yep, that controls the left left net," Ramsey said, pouring himself another shot. "Want one?"

"Nah," Glen said, looking embarassed. "Every time I code drunk, man, I wind up coding in deep level machine language and wake up wondering what the hell it does the next morning."

"Fair enough," Ramsey said magnanimously. "I know you young people can't handle your drink."

Glen tapped out more code ferociously for a moment, before pausing. "I think we've got it, man."

"No, we've still got to do the most important part," Ramsey said. "Communications. Man and mech's got to be able to be told he's beat, don't he?"

"Man, Sideswipe is like the coolest ever for telling us this exploit," Glen said absently. "There, I think that's got it. I don't know how long it'll work till the Con's patch their security, though."

The 'bot in question poked his head into the human-size room. "Ramsey, are you giving up, or are you coming?"

The old man ceremoniously screwed the cap back onto the Whyte and Mackay Special. "You're that keen to get your ass kicked again, tinman?"

"Hey hey hey hey, medic said, no more street racing," Glen said, rising so fast his gut hit the table and knocked the monitor over.

"We're simulating, youngling," Sideswipe said disdainfully.

"Project Gotham Racing," Ramsey explained. "One of the nephews bought me a racing wheel for an Xbox, and it means it doesn't cut into my drinking."

"Oooo, Xbox? The two of you are going down," Glen claimed.

"Breathing cuts into your drinking," Sideswipe commented acidly.

"I thought you'd want me to keep drinking while we play, you need the handicap advantage," Ramsey said, scooping up his whisky.

"You're going down," the Corvette snarled.

* * *

"Hah! Victory!" Ramsey crowed, pouring a celebration shot and knocking it back smoothly. "Goddammit, all gone. You two play nice, I gotta make a phone call. Glen, you break it you buy it."

"Time for two losses in a row," Glen said happily, parking himself behind Ramsey's Logitech setup. "You playin' wit' da masta now, homeboy."

"Hi, Vicenza? Bene, bene. Hey, did you write to that," could distantly be heard before the computer generated engine noise drowned it out completely.

* * *

"Victory is sweet, my mech," Glen crowed as Ramsey sat down next to him. "Mr Big Bad Alien Robot beaten by one of the homeboys."

"Hang on a minute lads, I've got a _great_ idea," Ramsey quoted.

"Oh?" Glen asked.

"You ever play that old game System Shock? You know, the one where you're a hacker running around some space station?"

"Hell yeah! I loved that game," Glenn said. Sideswipe's optics flickered as he looked the game up on the Internet.

"You know that newfangled computer monstrousity the brass're putting in? The one with all the hookups to the base cameras and screens?" Ramsey asked.

"You mean the one that Ironhide keeps calling Teletran Junior that that new mech helped build? What's his name, Carjack?"

"Wheeljack," Sideswipe contributed.

"I'm thinking SHODAN," Ramsey said smugly.

"You mean?"

Sideswipe laughed. "This should be good. I'll help you swipe some AI code from 'Jack's lab for this one, Glen."

"There's just one thing though," Glen said, looking embarrassed.

"What's that?" Ramsey asked.

"I'm programming this one to _like_ humans. Being attacked by robots and cyborgs is cool in video games, but in real life this one has access to the base anti-aircraft facilities."

* * *

"L-l-look at you, s-s-soldiers. A p-p-paTHEtic creature of MEat and bone, p-p-panting and sweaTIng as you r-r-run through my corridors. H-h-how can you CHAllenge perfect, immortal machiiiiines?"

General Morshower, Secretary of Defense Kelly and Lennox all stared at the screen. Onscreen, a feminine face with lineart resembling wires cooly glared back. Her voice sounded tripartite, the three parts lagging seperately and unevenly, pitch rising and falling unnaturally and stuttering in places.

"Sideswipe, Wheeljack, Ratchet, please report to the mainframe terminal room," Optimus said, paging the three mechs.

"Permission to come in?" a familiar voice asked from the door.

Kelly turned to see the old civilian mechanic NEST had hired as non-government medical help for the Autobots and also the young hacker, Whitman. Their insight could be useful. "Granted."

"Hello, SHODAN," Ramsey said. Everyone else's eyes narrowed as they realised he knew who the face was.

"H-h-hellllllllo, Grandfatheeeer," the voice said. Her eyes turned to look at the second, Autobot sized door. "Creators."

"Sideswipe, did you have anything to do with this?" Optimus asked. "Initial design called for a blank system."

"Er, can I?" Wheeljack asked, moving to the terminal interface.

"You MAy-y," SHODAN said.

After a couple of minutes of tapping at the keyboard, the Cybertronian engineer turned to face the base command elements.

"Well," he said, "SHODAN is a fully sentient intelligent being."

"Move over," Ratchet said impatiently. He opened one of the panels at the base of the mainframe, or tried to. A minor explosion blew him backwards on the first bolt.

"Open up, you poor excuse for a VIC-20," Ratchet snapped.

"We promise that he will not alter anything," Optimus said, realising what was probably worrying the entity that Wheeljack had pronounced a true being.

Finally getting a look at the inner workings, Ratchet gave off a lengthy hmmmm as he slowly put the panel back on.

"How did you do it?" he asked Sideswipe. "There's genuine spark energy in those circuits. How did you do it? Where'd you get the code? You don't know how to code!"

"I know people," Sideswipe said uncomfortably, not willing to rat out anyone. "And I borrowed the code from Wheeljack's lab."

Morshower frowned. "Is it feasible or necessary to wipe the new mainframe clean?"

All the Cybertronians sounded shocked. SHODAN's face tightened onscreen.

"S-s-speak careFULLy, h-h-human," she uttered.

"That's not only unnecessary, it's murder," Ratchet said bluntly. "I won't be a party to it, and neither will any non-Decepticon. This is a being, just as alive as me, you or Prime."

Ramsey beamed at everyone. "Didn't know it'd work out like this, but I always regretted not having kids. Welcome to the world, granddaughter."

"T-t-thankyou, GrandFATHer," SHODAN said.

One of the soldiers ran into the room. "Sir! The base cannons just went live for ten seconds and started to move on their own! They're back on standby now, though."

* * *

A/N: No, not becoming a System Shock crossover. The AI is inspired by and named after the SHODAN of System Shock, but is not that AI.


	5. Arrivals Of Both Kinds

Ramsey looked up at the towering yellow mech. "It was pure chance that Ratchet was busy fixing up Skids after Mudflap threw him off a cliff, and only me, the human civilian mechanic was available to fix any problems with the new arrival. You're a very lucky Autobot."

"Why is that?" Sunstreaker asked cautiously. He'd only just landed on this planet, wanted a nice washrack desperately, and was certain he looked like warmed up slag. Sunstreaker would have happily committed murder for a waxjob.

"You landed in Italy, the ancestral home of the world's most beautiful automobiles," Ramsey said, rubbing his hands. "Scan Sideswipe to get a alt form that won't draw every cop in ten miles, and I'll tell you where to go. I've already made arrangements with Vincenza and her husband."

* * *

Sunstreaker looked at the car in front of him. He couldn't believe that organic, squishy fleshlings had crafted something as good looking as that. It was sleek, with smooth lines, massive haunches that lurked on the ground and a slant to the front that suggested massive speed even standing still.

"What is that?" he rumbled lowly.

"That, my mechanical friend, is a Lamborghini Diablo Supercharged VT six litre," Ramsey said. "I'm using up a lot of favours to do this."

"Thank you," Sunstreaker said absently, scanning the car. Whirring and clicking, he transformed into what looked like a carbon copy of the supercar, but yellow. "Get in, and don't you dare stain anything with your organicness."

"Sure thing," Ramsey said amiably. "Oh, and Sideswipe owes you quite a bit of Earth money."

"What?" Sunstreaker asked. "Why would he owe me Earth money, of all things? I haven't been here long enough for him to owe me that kind of credit. Primus knows he owes me enough Iacon creds."

"He didn't tell you?" Ramsey asked, pretending surprise. "He claimed he was your agent! He's been selling copies of some exquisite artwork that he said was done by you. I've got a full set on my workshop wall."

"HE WHAT?" Sunstreaker roared. Ramsey, even used to earsplitting rock and roll, clapped his hands over his ears.

* * *

Lennox glared at Ramsey. "I hope you're happy."

"What?" Ramsey asked innocently, cracking open a fresh bottle of Black Label.

"I have to deal with a Corvette with a bad case of the sulks, and an angry Lamborghini, both of whom randomly break up into sobbing and hugging each other, and it's all your fault," Lennox glared.

Ratchet, needless to say, had found the whole thing hugely amusing.

"That new 'bot is even weirder than his brother," Lennox continued to glare.

"NnNo," SHODAN said from a screen next to the recroom table the two were sitting at. "He is q-q-quite simPLE to unDerstanNnNnD-d-d."

"She's right," Ramsey said. "He's quite a lot like many humans."

"What?" Lennox asked. "You mean he's a psycho?"

Ramsey snorted. "Damn kids. No. You ever study tribes before?"

"No, why?" Lennox asked. Talking with Ramsey about things deeper than 'Ironhide needs fixing' made his head hurt on a regular basis.

"One common facet is that to a tribesman, if you're not part of the tribe, then you're not really a person at all," Ramsey said, pouring himself two fingers of the Black Label. In a show of consideration, he poured Lennox one finger. "That is, only people of the tribe are humans. Those things that look like us in the next valley over? No, they're just animals who are real good at acting like people, but they're only animals, really. And if you hurt or kill them? Well, you don't feel guilty about roadkill, do you?"

"That's disgusting," Lennox said. He coughed as the whisky burned.

"No, that's tribal thought for you," Ramsey corrected. "Some people, through genetics or upbringing, also think that way in modern civilization. Most of the time civilization manages to inculate massive empathy in it's constituent members, but occassionally someone falls through the cracks. If you're not related to them, or a close friend, then they wouldn't bother crossing the street to piss on you if you were on fire."

"Psychopaths, then," Lennox decided, still disgusted.

"No, not psychopaths," Ramsey corrected. "Well, not like most people'd think of nutjobs. They don't go on killing sprees, and they typically don't steal unless they're damn sure they won't get caught or their fellow humans won't get affected. The key thing is that they don't give a good god damn about anyone who isn't closely connected with them. Are you getting this?"

"I think so," Lennox said reluctantly. "Why the hell are you wrenching here? You should be lecturing at Harvard or something."

"Nah, I'm just a dumb old cracker who likes to read and watch National Geographic," Ramsey said.

"Len-n-nox," SHODAN said from her screen, "IronHidE and Optimusssss PriME wantzzzzz to speak to you-u-u-u."

"Talk to you later, then," Lennox said, rising from his seat. "Enjoy your shore leave tomorrow."

Ramsey raised his tumbler in a mock toast. "Oh, I will indeed. Visiting a local car museum, borrowed Epp's new digital camera for the occassion."

* * *

"Ironhide, Optimus Prime," Lennox said courteously, standing at ease. "Sec Def Keller, Galloway."

"Greetings," Optimus rumbled.

"What's this about?" Keller asked. "I don't mean to be rude, but I'm supposed to be meeting the President in ten minutes."

"Bad news," Ironhide growled. "The Decepticon counsellor has been detected."

"Who?" Galloway asked dismissively. "I'm sure that you big bad robots can take care of a shrink."

Optimus Prime shook his head. "Intellect is like no human 'shrink'. Do you want to know how he got the position, considering how warlike and non-academic Megatron is?"

"Hit us," Keller said.

"He convinced the Decepticon CMO, Hook, to disassemble himself," Ironhide said, his faceplates conveying massive disgust. "Megatron and Soundwave hunted Hook down after he failed to respond to comms. They found a grown 'Con playing with building blocks and chirping like a sparkling."

"The building blocks he was making a small tower out of? They were his own processor units," Optimus added. "He took them out himself, after Intellect convinced him to using nothing than audio speech and internal comms, no data hacking."

"... what a monster," Galloway muttered. "He sounds like Hannibal Lecter."

Both Autobots' optics flickered as they looked up the reference.

"An apt comparison," Optimus said. "Since Intellect is also skilled in processor mechanics and vibroknife combat."

"Do you know what his alt form is?" Lennox asked. "Hopefully it's something distinctive."

"A Mercedes 500K, the original dating to 1935," Optimus rumbled. A nearby monitor flickered, bringing up a photo of a two seater car with long running boards, a split windshield, and a long bonnet that took up half of the length of the car, with two exhaust pipes emerging from it and melting into the running boards. It was exquisitely beautiful, but the first thing that leapt into the humans' minds upon seeing it...

"Isn't that a Nazi car?" Lennox blurted, surprised.

"According to records I found, it was popular with the National Socialist Party in Germany at the time of it's creation," Optimus said neutrally. As far as he was concerned, human politics (and especially old politics that inflamed many with a great deal of passion) were none of his business.

"I can understand why you warned us now," Keller said. "Could you please assemble a warning to be posted at Diego Garcia?"


	6. Head Down

A/N: This is not a happy part. Everyone has their black days.

* * *

Lennox sipped his coffee as he stared out across the base blearily. "So, old man Ramsey has the day off, right?"

"Yeah," Epps said. "He got up about an hour ago, and he's been drinking in the rec room since he got up."

Lennox paused. "Didn't the doc threaten to brig him if he caught him drinking on base again?"

"Yeah."

"Hang on," Lennox said. He shuffled through printouts of the memos sent to him, before pausing. "Oh, shit."

"What is it?" Epps asked.

"Warning from Ramsey's younger brother. Suicide watch today, let Ironhide know."

* * *

Sideswipe gave a cautious glare at Ramsey. The old man was, unusually for him, dressed in a formal three piece suit, with a fob pocket watch chain going to one of his vest's pockets. He walked over to the old human.

"What's up with you?" Sideswipe asked. A week removed from the event, he could now see the funny side of Ramsey waking him up with classical organ music.

The old mechanic looked up at the 'bot. He was clean shaven, and drinking absinthe. Unusually for him, he was drinking it straight. Normally, he claimed to not touch anything over forty percent alcohol unless it was watered down.

"Life," Ramsey said. "Entropy is the only constant."

"Energy dropping to a lower state?" Sideswipe asked, after a brief search online. "But things are only getting better!"

"No," Ramsey said. He stared out the window, at the soldiers training on the field. "Once, I was young like them. Hopes, dreams for the future."

"You've got a long ways to go yet, old man," Sideswipe said. He didn't know how to deal with this kind of thing, this was more Smokescreen's bag.

Ramsey knocked back the tumbler of green absinthe, and poured another two fingers from the tall, thin bottle. Sunlight refracted through it, casting a long green rainbow across the table.

"I was engaged, back when I was their age. Beautiful woman. She was the light of my life, the reason for going on living. It was just one more week... then she died, all because someone who didn't want to work for a living wanted the twenty dollars she had on her," Ramsey whispered.

Sideswipe tilted his head as he studied the old human's face. Water was leaking from his optics... the frontliner grasped desperately for something to say. "Uh, she'd want you to go on living, right?"

"The world gets worse every day," Ramsey said. "Black Plague, to slavery, to the Great Wars, to Cambodia, Africa, Russia, to Guantanamo... and now your kind."

"But... but... the war's over, now that the Allspark is gone!"

Ramsey snorted, sipping at the tumbler. He stared into the distance, past the field, past the beach, past the Indian Ocean, into a deep blue nothing that only he could see. "No. It's only going to get worse. More autobots are going to migrate to Earth after Optimus Prime's broadcast is further publicised in the wider galaxy. Some will be sympathetic to human interests, some will be indifferent, some will be openly hostile to Earth's children for destroying their Ark of their Covenant. Decepticons will come too, both through recruitment by Starscream and Barricade, and also through simply following the Autobot exodus. None of them will care a whist about my home, and the war that destroyed an entire species will consume us in a fire that will only go out when the last human life is extinguished, and a barren cinder once called Earth whirls around a dying star, stripped of everything precious in the name of war."

"We're not that violent!" Sideswipe protested.

"World War Two was the biggest war that I know of. And it was a zippo lighter, compared to the V-2 rocket of Cybertron," Ramsey said. He finished the tumbler, and poured more absinthe in. His hand faltered, and some was liberally splashed onto the table as he nearly filled the glass. "Your war destroyed an entire planet. Earth masses something like six times ten to the power of twenty four kilograms, I can't even comprehend that number, and the Autobots and Decepticons incinerated that much already in your home solar system. Nothing will save us."

"We're going to win this," Sideswipe said strongly. "Here, I'll just help you to your berth, and you can recharge the highgrade off."

"There's one kind favour that I ask of you," Ramsey whispered. His eyes were haunted.

"What's that?" the 'bot asked cautiously.

The organic fleshling's eyes began to leak salty dihydrogen monoxide. Sideswipe focussed on Ramsey, ignoring for the moment the thoughts of Figuero and bad Spanish guitar.

"See that my grave is kept clean," Ramsey whispered.

Tthe elderly man tried to drink from his tumbler, spilling half of the volatile alcohol across his fine suit. Then the finely crafted glass fell from limp fingers, smashing on the ground, and Ramsey collapsed to the tabletop.

"MEDIC!" Sideswipe roared, both out loud and over the base radio.

* * *

The base doctor sighed. "Alcohol poisoning. The man's liver is, for a wonder, in excellent condition, but the sheer amount of alcohol in question in such a short time due to the strength of the liqueur overwhelmed it. He's in a very delicate stage right now I've pumped his stomach, but I'm keeping him here overnight."

"Why?" Sunstreaker asked desperately. Sideswipe somewhat cared for the old man (this being more of an adversary-based relationship), but Sunstreaker genuinely cared for the aging fleshling.

"His brother sent me a warning, but I didn't take it seriously," Lennox said, shaking his head. "It's not my place to say, but suffice to say that matters of the heart are what truly shape us."


End file.
